Welcome to CHAPTER 39 of the Kinsmen Die podcast, home of fantasy fiction based on Norse mythology that’s written and read by me, Matt Bishop.

In this podcast I read my first novel, Kinsmen Die, one chapter at a time. And, with each episode, when it makes sense, I provide some commentary about the source materials I’ve referenced in the text.

Today, we’re back with Vafthrudnir, the High Shaman of the Jotunn. 

Last time we were with him, Vaft was with the Jotunn warband Helveg which is led by Beli. Vaft and two other shaman — Steinfastr and Kali — had “dominated” a troop of snow bears. Vaft and the war band were also there to investigate a phenomenon that one of Helveg’s scouts had discovered. We’re about to learn what that was.

So, let’s get to it. 

Chapter Thirty-Nine
Vafthrudnir
A long black tunnel stretched out in front of Vafthrudnir. He ran his hand along the tunnel wall; it wasn’t rough stone. It was smooth glacier ice that glistened in the light of the witchlamps.  And it led, like a gullet, down to the belly—a reeking nest he could smell from here—that had been home to the matron and her pack.
Shall I run ahead? Fimbulthul asked from her perch atop his shoulder.
Are there more snow bears down there?
There were some pups. But I took care of them. He got the impression of a full belly.
Go on, then, he said.
Fimbulthul leaped down, taking the shape of a great-cat as she landed. Keep an eye on Kali. I’m pretty sure she can see me.
I suspected she might.
Fimbulthul looked back over her shoulder. Why didn’t you say something? I would’ve been discreet.
Vafthrudnir snorted.
“High Shaman?” Hersir Beli asked as he offered him a forked device made of smooth witchwood that looked like a sword with two hilts set at an angle to the blade. All three ends of the device were capped with a gold setting that each held a single dark ruby.
“No thank you, Hersir.”
Beli nodded, twisted the gold settings in turn, each clicked, and the device began to emit a quiet thrum. Beli extended the device in front of him so that the single end would show them which way to go. He turned slowly in a circle; each ruby glowed faintly and then faded as he passed through one direction in his rotation.
Well? Fimbulthul persisted. Why didn’t you say anything about Kali?
I wanted to find out if you thought the same.
Well, she’s pretending otherwise, but she seems very curious, Fimbulthul said.
Beli completed one full rotation and again faced in the direction where the device had faintly glowed. He moved it up, the glow faded. When the device pointed down and to the right, the rubies glowed like the cheeks of an angry child and the tip bounced up and down.
“Down it is, then,” Beli said.
What a surprise, Fimbulthul said. She darted ahead.
“I’m ready,” Vafthrudnir said to Beli.
The hersir nodded and motioned for the warriors to proceed. The front row of three fighters held axes and shields. The second row extended their spears in front of the shieldmen with witchlamps swinging from the ends. The darkness retreated as the small formation began moving forward.
He followed, with Beli and Kali beside him. Another knot of a dozen warriors followed behind. The rest of Helveg was topside, sweating and swearing as they dragged the dominated, still-sleeping snow bears back to the nest and its shelter—Goldtooth might be a drunk and unlikely to hear or see them, but he’d spent too many winters being cautious to stop now. When Kali returned to the surface, she would wake the snow bears and Helveg would be that much stronger.
But for now, the tunnel beckoned.

***

The long dark glistening gullet of a tunnel ended in a cavern somehow carved into the glacier itself. Bones rolled, clinked and crumbled underfoot as the party stepped from the tunnel into the cave.
Even within the short reach of the witchlamps’s light, Vafthrudnir counted the skulls of three types of animals, none of which had ever lived atop a glacier. Particularly the fish. The air itself was warmer than he’d expected. It tasted wet and stank like stranded seaweed on a hot day.
He squatted and ran his hand along the cave wall where the ice had been deeply scored by the passage of the beasts. A well-traveled gullet.
As they slowly walked further into the cavern, Beli again raised the device moving it through an arc before him. As it pointed toward the cave’s center, the three-pronged wand bucked up and down in his hands as the red glow from the rubies threw bloody shadows across his face. 
“Ahead and to the left, Kjolr,” Beli said, to the warriors before him, a curved sliver between him and the darkness ahead.
“Yes, Hersir,” the big-shouldered kjolr said. “Advance. Slowly.”
The warriors with shields stepped forward two paces to the edge of the light cast by the witchlamps. The spearmen followed. Then the shieldmen took another two steps.
Vafthrudnir and Kali followed just behind. Every step across the bony field was treacherous. Ancient bones crumbled and crunched while newer ones clinked as they rolled and shifted underfoot.
A hundred paces in, it became obvious that the cavern was both huge and empty. If there had been more snow bears, even pups, they would have attacked by now.
There’s nothing in here besides all these bones and the doorway, his fylgja said.
I’m not going to interrupt them, he thought back to her. Their caution is commendable.
The device in Beli’s hands bucked like an unbroken stallion. The rubies’ glow intensified, pooling in the lines of strain across the hersir’s face. “We’re nearly on top of it, Kjolr.”
“Yes, Hersir,” the kjolr replied. Then to the warriors around him, he said, “Look for the shimmer of heat in the air. It’s not hot—well, it never has been—but that’s what you look for. Call out if you see it before I do.”
Tense moments passed as each warrior slowed to a single step every few heartbeats. The light cast by the witchlamps swung back and forth.
“I think I see it,” one of the warriors called over her shoulder. “Bit more than a spear’s length ahead.”
“All right,” the kjolr said. “Everyone another pace forward till it’s visible.”
This really isn’t necessary, his fylgja said. There’s nothing here or on the other side.
You went through already?
Of course. Looks like a lakebed.
Another pair of steps, and the witchlamp exposed a shimmering in the air. “There it is,” said one of the warriors.
“I see it,” the kjolr said. “Shake that witchlamp off the spear right beside the shimmering. We’ll walk a quick circle around it,.”
Having found the doorway Beli turned around so the device stopped bucking. He twisted the gold settings and rubies’ glow faded.

***

Led by Kjolr Yngvi, Helveg’s warriors drove their spears butt-first into the bones. They hung witchlamps on them, making a wide, well-lit circle around the shimmering doorway. Using their shields as shovels, they cleared a rough circle around the doorway and a wide path back through the bones to the tunnel. Below the bones, nearly a sword’s length deep in places, lay the grainy gray-blue of glacial ice.
Once they had room to work, the warriors cleared the bones that concealed the lower portion of the doorway. Next, using the longer bones, spears and rope, Yngvi had a crude frame built for the doorway—to prevent “idiots from going where they shouldn’t.”
Vafthrudnir sat on the piled bones beside Kali. She was wide-eyed, staring at the doorway. It glimmered like a bead of dew in the witchlamps’ light.  
“First time seeing one?” he asked.
“Yes, High Shaman.” She was probably just past her twentieth winter. The swirling blue tattoos on her shaved scalp showed her as an adept, the appropriate rank for a shaman serving as a second.
“It’s safe on the other side, so you can step through after me,” he said.
Maybe I was just trying to trick you, his fylgja whispered.
Mmhmm.
“You don’t seem too surprised at that, Adept Kali,” he continued, keeping his tone friendly and casual.
She stiffened.
He gestured toward the doorway. “It’s all right. She said you were probably able to see her.”
“I’m not sure I understand—”
He laughed. “Not all shamans can see the disir—of those who can, very few have the strength to call one to them.” Or go to them. Not that it would matter if they could. Except for two, Ygg had claimed them all for himself and the Aesir. “I also noticed you studying the charm I used to dominate the snow bear. And then you adapted it for yourself, which certainly helped with the matron.”
A line of sweat had formed on her upper lip. What was he doing that made her so uneasy? Or was it simply that he, the Vafthrudnir—the name taken by all those who became high shaman—was talking to her, an adept?
“High Shaman?” Kjolr Yngvi called.
“Ready for me, then?”
“Yes, High Shaman.”
“I’ll be along in a moment. Thank you.”
He stood and brushed bone dust from his cloak. “I’m in need of a second, Kali.” He gestured toward the doorway. “I have work to do there—on the other side—so Helveg will be moving on without me. You’ll go with them, of course, since you’re the only one who can manage the snow bears, at least until the replacement First Shaman arrives. I’ll eventually rejoin Helveg, though, and when I do, I’d like you to begin training with me. That you can see the disir is reason enough...”
That’s not quite true, his fylgja whispered.
“... and you’ve shown a willingness to depart from what the masters in Jotunheim have no doubt pounded into your head.”
Nor is that, necessarily.
She has potential, all right? But it needs to be shaped, like an ingot.
Or thrown back in the fire, if that shaping goes awry.
I won’t know till I try.
Kali stood, wariness evident in the set of her shoulders and tight-pressed lips. But hope was in her eyes, too. “I would like that, High Shaman.”
“Good,” he said, with a quick nod. “We’ll start now. Follow me.”

***

They stood ankle deep in puffy snow on the other side of the doorway from the glacier cavern. The doorway itself glimmered behind them, the dark cavern visible through what looked like a rippling sheet of water.
“Where are we?” Kali asked aloud, turning to take in their surroundings. Her eyes shone with barely contained excitement. “It looks like Utgard.”
Hauling in a deep breath, he also turned in place. Nothing but cold air whistled through his nostrils—no odd smells at all. They did seem to be standing in a drained lakebed, just as his fylgja had said. In the distance, thick layers of wooly clouds lay draped across the mountain’s shoulders. Sól was much higher in the sky than she should be if they were in Utgard.
He blew out a lungful of air that he was among the first two Jotunn ever to breathe. Probably. “Speak this way,” he said using the hand language. “It does resemble Utgard, but that’s not where we are.”
 “How can you know that?”
“You tell me,” he signed.
She took her time looking, shading her eyes and examining the mountains, stooping to taste the snow. Then she looked up at Sól and immediately down at her shadow. “The sun’s in the wrong place. My shadow’s too short.”
“Well done. And having observed that, any guesses as to what the night sky might look like?”
She pursed her lips. “Different stars, I’d guess—some of them, at least. Maybe all.”
“And do you have your instruments with you?” All shamans were trained to study and measure the stars’ movements, including the rising and setting of Muspell’s sparks.
“No, High Shaman.” A pained expression crept across her face.
He grinned. “I don’t, either. Normally I would, but I have an advantage most don’t.”
Find anything interesting? He sent the thought winging toward his fylgja.
I went eastward, about as far as you could walk in a day. Nothing out here. I’m coming back now.
He had the impression that she was bounding closer, covering huge distances.
“So we have a little time. What questions do you have for me?”
Her expression shifted from careful study—apparently she was observant enough to see when he was speaking with his fylgja—to the first genuine smile he’d seen from her. She pointed at the doorway. “What is that? How does it let us travel so quickly from one place we know to another we don’t?”
“No one’s entirely certain, but here’s what I’ve figured out. The doorways appear to be natural. They just exist. There’s nothing I did or can do, as far as I’m aware, to make one appear. Having stepped through many, I don’t think we’re traveling—not like we would across land or water on a wolf—or sea-wolf,” he added with a lopsided grin. “I think it’s more like an actual doorway. We just…step from inside a hall, as an example, to outside. Or the reverse.”
Her head tilted slightly to one side and her eyes narrowed. “But even then, there’s space being crossed—the threshold itself, right?”
He nodded and motioned for her to follow him. First they stood and examined the doorway. It was maybe twice the shoulder width of a large man and roughly a spear’s length high. Big in comparison to many of the others he’d passed through.
“What do you see?”
“Just the doorway,” she signed. “The cavern, too, but it’s difficult to make out.”
“You noted how wide it is?”
She nodded.
He motioned for her to follow him again. Now they stood looking at the doorway edge-on. “What do you see now?”
“It’s barely visible,” she signed, moving back and forth to view it at different angles. “But how can that be? It’s thinner than spring ice.”
“You expected what?”
She glanced back at him. “I... well... I don’t know. A tunnel? It would make more sense.”
“More sense than a magic doorway that lets us step without delay from remotest Utgard to wherever this place is?” He gestured grandly around him.
His fylgja chose that moment to slide into place between them, startling Kali so that she took a quick three steps backward.
That proved it. She could see Fimbulthul.
“Kali, meet Fimbulthul. She’s my fylgja. You’re the first in a very long time to see her.”
Wonder crept across Kali’s face, displacing the surprise. With a deep bow, she said, “I am honored, Fimbulthul.”
I like her.
So do I.
Are you going to get this one killed, too?
Not on purpose.
Kali cleared her throat and asked, fingers dancing, “If I may, High Shaman, that device the Hersir used—it finds these doorways? Or makes them? And where did it come from?”
“From here,” he said, tapping the side of his head.

OUTRO
Well, folks, that was CHAPTER 39 of Kinsmen Die. I hope you enjoyed it. 

We were with Vafthrudnir as he, along with Kali and Beli descended into the a weird cavern somehow cut into glacial ice that snow bears had made into their den.

Beli used a device to find a doorway in that cavern — a doorway that Vaft and Kali then walked through.

There’s not much happening here myth-wise. This stuff with the doorways is my own invention, though it does tie back into how I’ve interpreted some elements of Norse myth…which I’m not going to share b/c of spoilers.

Next week, we’re back with Frigg.

Before then, if you have the time and inclination, please rate and/or review the podcast — that helps boost the show’s visibility. As does sharing it.

And if you’re so inclined, shoot me an email at mattbishopwrites@gmail.com.

I’d love to hear from you.
  
As always, I’m going to read from the Havamal, sayings of the High One, Odin himself.

As usual, I’ll be reading from Bellows and Larrington. 

But not as usual, there’s a weirdness in the Bellows number of the verses as compared to what some of the other translators do. Bellows verse 39 is what others (Larrington and Kodratoff) call verse 40. To the best of my understanding this happened b/c there are different source manuscripts and different translators and/or editors make slightly different choices…and we’re only seeing this discrepancy b/c I’m reading from multiple translations.

So what I’m doing here is reading Bellows 39…and then Larrington 40. Next week it’ll flip-flop.

Bellows, Verse 39

If wealth a man has won for himself,
Let him never suffer in need;
Oft he saves for a foe what he plans for a friend,
For much goes worse than we wish.

Larrington, Verse 40
His piled-up property
a man shouldn’t go without;
what you meant for those you love is often saved for those you hate; much goes worse than is expected.


 
Thanks for listening.